Philosophical Investigations Part II - Wittgenstein

[Wyman]

physical body parts holding immaterial emotional states and thoughts...

but the machines show the electrical impulses between synapses as thoughts occur...

-Imp

I can't answer that until you say what you mean by a 'thought' or an 'emotional state.'

perceptions, currently perceived or unperceived, translated or otherwise experienced even previously, inexact perceptions and how one feels about them or otherwise, then again...

what did you think I thought? I think you didn't think the same thought either and even if we could find the precise terminology, the termination of said thought in the vacuum of empty terms only prevents complete understanding not communication of vagaries...

"Your truth is not my truth; my truth is not yours" - B. Lee

-Imp

Communication is possible not via precise terminology, but nonetheless by conversation (dialogue, dialectic?) which is honest and complete enough to establish a set of agreed upon terms or concepts. How 'complete' or thorough it need be depends on the participants (history, education, personality). Once common terms/ideas/concepts/ are arrived at, communication proceeds step by step in logical, rational fashion. At least this is the myth that allows us to function intellectually. Otherwise there would be no communication, no shared values and understanding - and that clearly (empirically) is not the case. It's a similar argument as against Cartesian doubt - I know it happens (communication and experience), I just don't know exactly how it happens, but I choose not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I guess since you leave open the possibility of 'complete understanding,' maybe we agree on this point.

If thoughts are experiences/perceptions, past and present, and emotional states are feelings towards thoughts, I think I understand except for the fact that you use 'thought' instead of just perceptions and also distinguish between 'feeling's' towards thoughts and just thoughts themselves. One guy on this forum, for instance, insists that feelings and thoughts are all just 'experiences' and distinctions therein are meaningless. But I'll focus on thoughts as perceptions:

The automaton points to the red apple and says 'red apple' upon prompting. The human does the same, but the human 'has' thoughts, which are 'intermediary between,' or 'floating upon,' or 'emerging from,' photons causing synapses to fire. I reject this picture of perception, so I will start there as a point of departure from our common set of terms and ideas. I wouldn't say that synapses firing are perceptions, but that we do not agree upon what a 'perception' is. This would entail a long discussion of the activity of perceiving, which, as always, I'm game for, but only if you and/or others want to have another discussion of what perception and consciousness and thoughts and feelings are.

[Impenitent]

perceptions, currently perceived or unperceived, translated or otherwise experienced even previously, inexact perceptions and how one feels about them or otherwise, then again...

what did you think I thought? I think you didn't think the same thought either and even if we could find the precise terminology, the termination of said thought in the vacuum of empty terms only prevents complete understanding not communication of vagaries...

"Your truth is not my truth; my truth is not yours" - B. Lee

-Imp

Communication is possible not via precise terminology, but nonetheless by conversation (dialogue, dialectic?) which is honest and complete enough to establish a set of agreed upon terms or concepts. How 'complete' or thorough it need be depends on the participants (history, education, personality). Once common terms/ideas/concepts/ are arrived at, communication proceeds step by step in logical, rational fashion. At least this is the myth that allows us to function intellectually. Otherwise there would be no communication, no shared values and understanding - and that clearly (empirically) is not the case. It's a similar argument as against Cartesian doubt - I know it happens (communication and experience), I just don't know exactly how it happens, but I choose not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I guess since you leave open the possibility of 'complete understanding,' maybe we agree on this point.


Yes, we roughly agree on this point...


If thoughts are experiences/perceptions, past and present, and emotional states are feelings towards thoughts, I think I understand except for the fact that you use 'thought' instead of just perceptions and also distinguish between 'feeling's' towards thoughts and just thoughts themselves. One guy on this forum, for instance, insists that feelings and thoughts are all just 'experiences' and distinctions therein are meaningless. But I'll focus on thoughts as perceptions:

The automaton points to the red apple and says 'red apple' upon prompting. The human does the same, but the human 'has' thoughts, which are 'intermediary between,' or 'floating upon,' or 'emerging from,' photons causing synapses to fire. I reject this picture of perception, so I will start there as a point of departure from our common set of terms and ideas. I wouldn't say that synapses firing are perceptions, but that we do not agree upon what a 'perception' is. This would entail a long discussion of the activity of perceiving, which, as always, I'm game for, but only if you and/or others want to have another discussion of what perception and consciousness and thoughts and feelings are.

thoughts (as I understand them) are the internal linguistic representations of that which is perceived or remembered (currently or previous perception)... the perception is what is "absorbed" or created via the senses... the existence of an external world that actually exists beyond the perception is not knowable (on this, Kant was correct, one cannot know the thing in itself- rather one has the sensory perception alone)... unfortunately, general use of language suggests permanence ... as Nietzsche said "...What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins....

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/ ... _Sense.htm

-Imp

[Wyman]

internal linguistic representations of that which is perceived

the perception is what is "absorbed" or created via the senses..

Thoughts are 'internal linguistic representations.' That means that they are linguistic, as opposed to visual (for instance). As such, I suppose they are no different than spoken linguistic representations - i.e. language. Plato said in one dialogue that thought was nothing but internal discourse to oneself, so you're in good company there.

And that is, of course, exactly what Wittgenstein is 'Investigating' - the relationship between language and the world. Now, you also say that language represents that which is perceived; and that what causes those perceptions is unknowable per Kant. Therefore, language does not represent the world, but rather, it represents some intermediary between us and the world. And that intermediary, the perception, is either created or absorbed by us through the senses.

The question arises, how does language represent perceptions? This is where the idea of 'meanings' comes in. The relation between language and perception is called 'meaning.' It is an ambiguous term, but in so far as there is a relation (rather than many relations or no relations) we are free to name that relation anything we want, so we'll call it 'meaning.'

Wittgenstein and Quine challenge the notion that we can make any sense out of 'meanings' of single words, or even of sentences. There must be context. Only a whole theory, if anything, may represent perception - a swathe of interconnected sentences. Single sentences, much less single words, only have meaning as part of a much larger context. Per Wittgenstein, we can only get a sense of a words meaning by investigating how it is used in a particular 'language game.' I take language game to be ore or less a 'theory' or 'context' involving those large groups of interconnected sentences that possess meaning.

But what if the idea that perceptions are intermediary entities between the world and the senses which forever prohibit knowledge of reality is wrong? Only philosophers and philosophy students recognize such opaque entities. So the overwhelming majority of humans would disagree with you. Further, a great revolution in human thought occurred as a direct consequence of discarding such notions in favor of trusting the senses - experimental science.

I would not so much challenge the idea of observer created (or influenced) perception, but of the notion that it is not connected with reality in such a way as to provide understanding - i.e. I would challenge the Kantian notion that the cause of experience is unknowable. We know reality through the patterns revealed through perception.

[Impenitent]

internal linguistic representations of that which is perceived

the perception is what is "absorbed" or created via the senses..

Thoughts are 'internal linguistic representations.' That means that they are linguistic, as opposed to visual (for instance). As such, I suppose they are no different than spoken linguistic representations - i.e. language. Plato said in one dialogue that thought was nothing but internal discourse to oneself, so you're in good company there.

And that is, of course, exactly what Wittgenstein is 'Investigating' - the relationship between language and the world. Now, you also say that language represents that which is perceived; and that what causes those perceptions is unknowable per Kant. Therefore, language does not represent the world, but rather, it represents some intermediary between us and the world. And that intermediary, the perception, is either created or absorbed by us through the senses.

agreed

The question arises, how does language represent perceptions? This is where the idea of 'meanings' comes in. The relation between language and perception is called 'meaning.' It is an ambiguous term, but in so far as there is a relation (rather than many relations or no relations) we are free to name that relation anything we want, so we'll call it 'meaning.'


yet there is no exact relation, no exact meaning



Wittgenstein and Quine challenge the notion that we can make any sense out of 'meanings' of single words, or even of sentences. There must be context. Only a whole theory, if anything, may represent perception - a swathe of interconnected sentences. Single sentences, much less single words, only have meaning as part of a much larger context. Per Wittgenstein, we can only get a sense of a words meaning by investigating how it is used in a particular 'language game.' I take language game to be ore or less a 'theory' or 'context' involving those large groups of interconnected sentences that possess meaning.


not quite... Wittgenstein used the term "language-game" to designate forms of language simpler than the entirety of a language itself, "consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven" (PI 7), and connected by family resemblance (Familienähnlichkeit). The concept was intended "to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life" (PI 23) which gives language its meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language- ... hilosophy)



But what if the idea that perceptions are intermediary entities between the world and the senses which forever prohibit knowledge of reality is wrong? Only philosophers and philosophy students recognize such opaque entities. So the overwhelming majority of humans would disagree with you. Further, a great revolution in human thought occurred as a direct consequence of discarding such notions in favor of trusting the senses - experimental science.

I would not so much challenge the idea of observer created (or influenced) perception, but of the notion that it is not connected with reality in such a way as to provide understanding - i.e. I would challenge the Kantian notion that the cause of experience is unknowable. We know reality through the patterns revealed through perception.

you are still a brain in a vat

-Imp

[Wyman]

internal linguistic representations of that which is perceived

the perception is what is "absorbed" or created via the senses..

Thoughts are 'internal linguistic representations.' That means that they are linguistic, as opposed to visual (for instance). As such, I suppose they are no different than spoken linguistic representations - i.e. language. Plato said in one dialogue that thought was nothing but internal discourse to oneself, so you're in good company there.

And that is, of course, exactly what Wittgenstein is 'Investigating' - the relationship between language and the world. Now, you also say that language represents that which is perceived; and that what causes those perceptions is unknowable per Kant. Therefore, language does not represent the world, but rather, it represents some intermediary between us and the world. And that intermediary, the perception, is either created or absorbed by us through the senses.

agreed

The question arises, how does language represent perceptions? This is where the idea of 'meanings' comes in. The relation between language and perception is called 'meaning.' It is an ambiguous term, but in so far as there is a relation (rather than many relations or no relations) we are free to name that relation anything we want, so we'll call it 'meaning.'


yet there is no exact relation, no exact meaning



Wittgenstein and Quine challenge the notion that we can make any sense out of 'meanings' of single words, or even of sentences. There must be context. Only a whole theory, if anything, may represent perception - a swathe of interconnected sentences. Single sentences, much less single words, only have meaning as part of a much larger context. Per Wittgenstein, we can only get a sense of a words meaning by investigating how it is used in a particular 'language game.' I take language game to be ore or less a 'theory' or 'context' involving those large groups of interconnected sentences that possess meaning.


not quite... Wittgenstein used the term "language-game" to designate forms of language simpler than the entirety of a language itself, "consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven" (PI 7), and connected by family resemblance (Familienähnlichkeit). The concept was intended "to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life" (PI 23) which gives language its meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language- ... hilosophy)



But what if the idea that perceptions are intermediary entities between the world and the senses which forever prohibit knowledge of reality is wrong? Only philosophers and philosophy students recognize such opaque entities. So the overwhelming majority of humans would disagree with you. Further, a great revolution in human thought occurred as a direct consequence of discarding such notions in favor of trusting the senses - experimental science.

I would not so much challenge the idea of observer created (or influenced) perception, but of the notion that it is not connected with reality in such a way as to provide understanding - i.e. I would challenge the Kantian notion that the cause of experience is unknowable. We know reality through the patterns revealed through perception.

you are still a brain in a vat

-Imp

I agree with your interpretation of Wittgenstein. Although I was forcing him and Quine together, Quine is the holist. I did say that language game was applicable only to large groups of sentences, not all of language. And I used the word 'particular'.

[Wyman]

I got called away during my last post. I do think I have an answer to the brain in a vat model of perception, which I am working on in my magnum opus which should be released sometime within this century. When perception is thought of as an activity, the veil of ideas can be seen as an illusion. But that is a subject for one of the 'what is consciousness' threads.

[Impenitent]

I got called away during my last post. I do think I have an answer to the brain in a vat model of perception, which I am working on in my magnum opus which should be released sometime within this century. When perception is thought of as an activity, the veil of ideas can be seen as an illusion. But that is a subject for one of the 'what is consciousness' threads.

I look forward to it (I just hope it's brilliance doesn't cause the riot from Plato's cave...)

-Imp

[Wyman]

V

Suppose we were observing the movement of a point (for example,
a point of light on a screen). It might be possible to draw important
consequences of the most various kinds from the behaviour of this
point. And what a variety of observations can be made here 1—The
path of the point and certain of its characteristic measures (amplitude
and wave-length for instance), or the velocity and the law according
to which it varies, or the number or position of the places at which it
changes discontinuously, or the curvature of the path at these places,
and innumerable other things.—Any of these features of its behaviour
might be the only one to interest us. We might, for example, be indifferent
to everything about its movements except for the number of
loops it made in a certain time.—And if we were interested, not in just
one such feature, but in several, each might yield us special information,
different in kind from all the rest. This is how it is with the behaviour
of man; with the different characteristic features which we observe in
this behaviour.

Then psychology treats of behaviour, not of the mind?
What do psychologists record?—What do they observe? Isn't it
the behaviour of human beings, in particular their utterances? But
these are not about behaviour.

"I noticed that he was out of humour." Is this a report about his
behaviour or his state of mind? ("The sky looks threatening": is
this about the present or the future?) Both; not side-by-side, however,
but about the one via the other.

A doctor asks: "How is he feeling?" The nurse says: "He is
groaning". A report on his behaviour. But need there be any question
for them whether the groaning is really genuine, is really the expression
of anything? Might they not, for example, draw the conclusion "If he
groans, we must give him more analgesic"—without suppressing a
middle term? Isn't the point the service to which they put the description
of behaviour?

"But then they make a tacit presupposition." Then what we do in our
language-game always rests on a tacit presupposition.

I describe a psychological experiment: the apparatus, the questions of
the experimenter, the actions and replies of the subject—and then I say
that it is a scene in a play.—Now everything is different. So it will be
said: If this experiment were described in the same way in a book on
psychology, then the behaviour described would be understood as
the expression of something mental just because it is presupposed
that the subject is not taking us in, hasn't learnt the replies by heart,
and other things of the kind.—So we are making a presupposition?

Should we ever really express ourselves like this: "Naturally I am
presupposing that . . . . ."?—Or do we not do so only because the
other person already knows that?

Doesn't a presupposition imply a doubt? And doubt may be entirely
lacking. Doubting has an end.

It is like the relation: physical object—sense-impressions. Here we
have two different language-games and a complicated relation between
them.—If you try to reduce their relations to a simple formula you go
wrong.

'It's all very complicated' seems to be what he is saying. I don't like this entry. Every language game has its own set of rules and its
own set of presuppositions intricately related to the rules. It is impossible in practice to reduce particular language games to one
set of rules, except in very easy, primitive cases (like 'Slab here'). So we are all playing by slightly different rules when we are playing the
same game - and often, to complicate things more, we are often playing different games - coming at a situation from different contexts.

What makes it all even more complicated (probably hopelessly so) is the fact that ordinary language itself is a 'language game' so any
language game has to be understood as being contained in a broader game. This mosaic of context within context within context and so on makes it very difficult to see how any communication, learning, or agreement is even possible. A philosophical 'theory' that says that the
world is hopelessly complicated, so don't even try, is as useful as the solipsist or nihilist who says that nothing is knowable.

The loose notions of language games and family resemblance do little to explain how any knowledge, understanding, communication, scientific
theories (including mathematics) are possible. 'Family resemblance' explains how we group together things which do not necessarily have the same attributes. The explanation is a little like the old test of the Supreme Court for 'obscenity' - you know it when you see it. There is no place for disagreements (one person says they see it and one says they don't - there is no tiebreaker) and no explanation of how we would learn to 'see it.' Thus, Wittgenstein must resort to using the vague notion of 'language game' to explain the vague notion of 'family resemblance.' He says that a group of people playing the same game will come to know and agree on what is and is not a family resemblance. Something like ' I can't explain all the rules of spades and hearts, so just jump in the game and eventually you will 'get it.' How do we know if he 'gets it?' - he starts playing the game and winning once in a while.

[Impenitent]

yes, one game is the language itself, rigorously defined yet flexibly used...

one is merely a player

each player makes their own rules (definitions, rough syntax)

but the player(s) do not play the same game...

private knowledge, private truth, private understanding... possible? of course...

communicable? aye, there's the rub...

-Imp

[Wyman]

yes, one game is the language itself, rigorously defined yet flexibly used...

one is merely a player

each player makes their own rules (definitions, rough syntax)

but the player(s) do not play the same game...

private knowledge, private truth, private understanding... possible? of course...

communicable? aye, there's the rub...

-Imp

Sellars wrote a paper about language games, questioning how the rules are set up. The only way to tell someone how to play
language game A is to explain it in language B and so on.... But there had to have been a beginning. And he then talked about bees.

Bees do their waggle dance and we call it a language. They certainly did not just 'come up' with it one day since they do
not have the intelligence to set up such a complex form of communication or communicate it to the young bees. So, the dance
must have come about through evolution - chance.

It is easy enough to give a teleological basis for human language - i.e. that it has been developed by humans over time to
suit their needs. But how it began is a little like the question of learning a new language game - it is not clear how one learns
a new concept or game. It certainly doesn't happen through evolution. Wittgenstein deals with this elsewhere rather extensively; e.g., If a math teacher gives a student a series of numbers which follow a pattern, how does he know when the student learns the pattern? Or Plato's example of the math teacher showing the students a series of numbers (represented by geometrical figures) until they eventually came to know what it was (a concept) that he was showing them (I believe it was what we now call irrational numbers, but it's been a while). The question is - if we call learning such things 'knowledge,' then what is knowledge?

I suppose most would call it induction. Rule learning and induction are sticky, difficult topics that will come up, as I said, later in the PI. But it is good to see the relation between such problems and the very idea of language games. It is also interesting to see that he is tackling the exact
same questions that Plato did 2500 years ago.

[Impenitent]

yes, one game is the language itself, rigorously defined yet flexibly used...

one is merely a player

each player makes their own rules (definitions, rough syntax)

but the player(s) do not play the same game...

private knowledge, private truth, private understanding... possible? of course...

communicable? aye, there's the rub...

-Imp

Sellars wrote a paper about language games, questioning how the rules are set up. The only way to tell someone how to play
language game A is to explain it in language B and so on.... But there had to have been a beginning. And he then talked about bees.

Bees do their waggle dance and we call it a language. They certainly did not just 'come up' with it one day since they do
not have the intelligence to set up such a complex form of communication or communicate it to the young bees. So, the dance
must have come about through evolution - chance.

The "dance" came about from human labeling, nothing more

It is easy enough to give a teleological basis for human language - i.e. that it has been developed by humans over time to
suit their needs. But how it began is a little like the question of learning a new language game - it is not clear how one learns
a new concept or game. It certainly doesn't happen through evolution. Wittgenstein deals with this elsewhere rather extensively; e.g., If a math teacher gives a student a series of numbers which follow a pattern, how does he know when the student learns the pattern? Or Plato's example of the math teacher showing the students a series of numbers (represented by geometrical figures) until they eventually came to know what it was (a concept) that he was showing them (I believe it was what we now call irrational numbers, but it's been a while). The question is - if we call learning such things 'knowledge,' then what is knowledge?

justified (circularly through definitional logic) true (empirically verified) belief (embraced internal idea)... then again, I don't know...

I suppose most would call it induction. Rule learning and induction are sticky, difficult topics that will come up, as I said, later in the PI. But it is good to see the relation between such problems and the very idea of language games. It is also interesting to see that he is tackling the exact
same questions that Plato did 2500 years ago.

induction is an error in reasoning and the form of induction is a question painted on the wall...

-Imp

[Wyman]

induction is an error in reasoning and the form of induction is a question painted on the wall...

How about this - 'induction' is the adoption of an assumption from which, along with our other assumptions, we will make deductions.
A = (1,3,5,7,11,13,17...). I will assume that A is the set of all primes. If you ask what is the value of the nth position in the series, I can deduce the answer based on that assumption. If you maintain that my assumption is really only probable, then so are the results deduced from it. The caveat that all inductions are 'only' probable (there is always room for doubt) is left unstated - like Wittg's example of saying 'I am presupposing that he is not an automaton' before talking about someone. It makes no sense to state such presuppositions in the language game of number theory (induction is an axiom).

Put in these terms, Wittg's idea of 'language games' reduces to the rather humdrum observation that all reason is based on assumptions and only people
using the same assumptions will understand one another. But assumptions don't come out of thin air - did they 'evolve' in our culture like the waggle dance? I suppose in a manner of speaking we can say that Einstein's theories evolved from Newton's which evolved from Kepler and Galileo and so on to the beginning of human activity. But such anthropological accounts don't seem to tell the whole story or give enough credit to the creative geniuses.

[Impenitent]

induction is an error in reasoning and the form of induction is a question painted on the wall...

How about this - 'induction' is the adoption of an assumption from which, along with our other assumptions, we will make deductions.
A = (1,3,5,7,11,13,17...). I will assume that A is the set of all primes. If you ask what is the value of the nth position in the series, I can deduce the answer based on that assumption. If you maintain that my assumption is really only probable, then so are the results deduced from it. The caveat that all inductions are 'only' probable (there is always room for doubt) is left unstated - like Wittg's example of saying 'I am presupposing that he is not an automaton' before talking about someone. It makes no sense to state such presuppositions in the language game of number theory (induction is an axiom).

Put in these terms, Wittg's idea of 'language games' reduces to the rather humdrum observation that all reason is based on assumptions and only people
using the same assumptions will understand one another. But assumptions don't come out of thin air - did they 'evolve' in our culture like the waggle dance? I suppose in a manner of speaking we can say that Einstein's theories evolved from Newton's which evolved from Kepler and Galileo and so on to the beginning of human activity. But such anthropological accounts don't seem to tell the whole story or give enough credit to the creative geniuses.

"Assumption is the mother of all F*-ups"

I was thinking more of Hume

but the lack of "Knowledge" is illustrated in each

-Imp

[Wyman]

VI
Suppose someone said: every familiar word, in a book for example,
actually carries an atmosphere with it in our minds, a 'corona' of
lightly indicated uses.—Just as if each figure in a painting were
surrounded by delicate shadowy drawings of scenes, as it were in
another dimension, and in them we saw the figures in different contexts.—
Only let us take this assumption seriously!—Then we see that
it is not adequate to explain intention,

For if it is like this, if the possible uses of a word do float before us
in half-shades as we say or hear it—this simply goes for us. But we
communicate with other people without knowing if they have this
experience too.

How should we counter someone who told us that with him understanding
was an inner process?——How should we counter him if he
said that with him knowing how to play chess was an inner process?—
We should say that when we want to know if he can play chess we
aren't interested in anything that goes on inside him.—And if he replies
that this is in fact just what we are interested in, that is, we are interested
in whether he can play chess—then we shall have to draw his attention
to the criteria which would demonstrate his capacity, and on the other
hand to the criteria for the 'inner states'.

Even if someone had a particular capacity only when, and only as
long as, he had a particular feeling, the feeling would not be the
capacity.

The meaning of a word is not the experience one has in hearing or
saying it, and the sense of a sentence is not a complex of such experiences.
—(How do the meanings of the individual words make up
the sense of the sentence "I still haven't seen him yet"?) The sentence
is composed of the words, and that is enough.

Though—one would like to say—every word has a different character
in different contexts, at the same time there is one character it always
has: a single physiognomy. It looks at us.—But a face in a painting
looks at us too.

Are you sure that there is a single if-feeling, and not perhaps several?
Have you tried saying the word in a great variety of contexts? For
example, when it bears the principal stress of the sentence, and when
the word next to it does.

Suppose we found a man who, speaking of how words felt to him,
told us that "if" and "but" felt the same.—Should we have the right
to disbelieve him? We might think it strange. "He doesn't play our
game at all", one would like to say. Or even: "This is a different
type of man."

If he used the words "if" and "but" as we do, shouldn't we think
he understood them as we do?

One misjudges the psychological interest of the if-feeling if one
regards it as the obvious correlate of a meaning; it needs rather to be
seen in a different context, in that of the special circumstances in which
it occurs.

Does a person never have the if-feeling when he is not uttering
the word "if"? Surely it is at least remarkable if this cause alone
produces this feeling. And this applies generally to the 'atmosphere'
of a word;—why does one regard it so much as a matter of course
that only this word has this atmosphere?

The if-feeling is not a feeling which accompanies the word "if".
The if-feeling would have to be compared with the special 'feeling*
which a musical phrase gives us. (One sometimes describes such a
feeling by saying "Here it is as if a conclusion were being drawn", or
"I should like to say * hence . . . . . ' " , or "Here I should always like to
make a gesture—" and then one makes it.)

But can this feeling be separated from the phrase? And yet it is not
the phrase itself, for that can be heard without the feeling.
Is it in this respect like the 'expression' with which the phrase is
played?

We say this passage gives us a quite special feeling. We sing it to
ourselves, and make a certain movement, and also perhaps have some
special sensation. But in a different context we should not recognize
these accompaniments—the movement, the sensation—at all. They are
quite empty except just when we are singing this passage.

"I sing it with a quite particular expression." This expression is
not something that can be separated from the passage. It is a different
concept. (A different game.)

The experience is this passage played like this (that is, as I am doing
it, for instance; a description could only hint at it).

Thus the atmosphere that is inseparable from its object—is not an
atmosphere.

Closely associated things, things which we have associated, seem to fit
one another. But what is this seeming to fit? How is their seeming to
fit manifested? Perhaps like this: we cannot imagine the man who had
this name, this face, this handwriting, not to have produced these works,
but perhaps quite different ones instead (those of another great man).
We cannot imagine it? Do we try?—

Here is a possibility: I hear that someone is painting a picture
"Beethoven writing the ninth symphony". I could easily imagine the
kind of thing such a picture would shew us. But suppose someone
wanted to represent what Goethe would have looked like writing the
ninth symphony? Here I could imagine nothing that would not be
embarrassing and ridiculous.

I apply this train of thought to qualia and 'knowing.' Suppose the human body has a finite number of 'feeling' sensations - let's say
10. Each feeling is subconsciously applied in various contexts. The 'light bulb' feeling is felt when we think we have solved a sodoku
puzzle, when we remember something 'on the tip of tongue,' when we are awestruck, when we do a mathematical proof - for instance.

When the feeling is applied in different contexts, it seems to 'feel' different, so we come to think that each context actually has its own peculiar feeling. This is like when we see the 'same' color at different times - it seems the same, but if one were to put them side by side, we'd notice many differences that our perception glossed over.

When people claim that they get a particular feeling when they taste a good wine, or see a sunset - i.e. that each quale has its own special feeling - perhaps the the feelings are really not so different from one another - what distinguishes the experiences is the context in which it occurs and the accompanied feelings are incidental - they are mistaking the incidental as significant.

The same may go for the 'what it feels like to be a bat' crew.
We even find that the 'knowing feeling' may apply in circumstances we've never thought of - like

[Impenitent]

make no mistake, the incidental is significant, particularly within the epoche

-Imp